Basel

Magnus, the app Magnus Resch named after himself and described as “Shazam for Art”, has been pulled from the Apple Store after claims that it operates using data stolen from other art databases. I’m sick of hearing about art apps that are “the ____ for art,” but this story merits attention because Resch sent a photo of himself with a donkey to Hyperallergic with his press release. At least that’s one JPEG we can likely assume he didn’t swipe from Artsy’s servers. [Hyperallergic]

Professor Robert Ekelund has been studying what causes art museums to experience declines in visitors and revenue at a time when overall museum attendance is up. He finds that it comes down to three factors: audiences want more contemporary art, billionaires are buying up all of the contemporary art, and demographic/social shifts mean that more people are attending while museums are increasingly under pressure to provide free admission. [The Conversation]

Two recent studies have found that people of color “make up only 9% of museum boards and 16% of the administrators, curators, conservators and educators who make decisions about what is exhibited and preserved as culturally important.” After a review of more than a 1,000 cultural institutions, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs is dedicating $1m to diversity efforts including an increase in paid internships. [The Art Newspaper]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning pregnant women to stay away from Miami’s Wynwood Art District due to an outbreak of the Zika virus. Basel’s just four months away. [Jezebel]

Those afraid of Zika in South Florida will soon have more indoor room to see art, though. Miami Beach’s Bass Museum has added 50% more exhibition space without an addition. They accomplished this by reconfiguring interior spaces (remember that huge ramp? It’s gone) and enclosing the terraces, so no more great outdoor parties for Basel week. [artnet News]

Lisa Ruyter has begun the process of transitioning into a man. Ruyter started hormone therapy two weeks ago but he isn’t sure about future plans to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. [Page Six]

The Rio Olympics don’t seem to be going very well and now funding has been pulled for a series of public art projects that were planned to coincide with the games. Giancarlo Neri, an artist who was to be included in the project says that the cancellation has more to do with politics than budget concerns. He says that the upcoming impeachment trial of President Dilma Rousseff has caused many projects to be stalled or cancelled completely. [artnet News]

Yuri Pattison has transformed the Chisenhale Gallery in London into an eerie, abandoned co-working space for some hypothetical tech startup that may or may not have gone out of business. The installation sounds uncanny and brilliantly evocative considering how little intervention there seems to be beyond creating a simulacrum of an office. [The Guardian]

The Wall Street Journal’s “Black Friday” guide to shopping at art fairs recommends pretty much everything that would piss off gallerists short of “touch the art”. [The Wall Street Journal]

Here’s an excellent explanation of the features and policies of suburbia that make it such a soul-crushing realm. [Quartz]

We’re relieved to hear that Kenya Michaels—the tiny Puerto Rican drag queen who won America’s hearts on Rupaul’s Drag Race and countless GIFs—escaped the shooting at Pulse in Orlando. Kenya performed at the club at midnight, and apparently managed to make it out shortly after the shooting starting. [Paper Magazine]

Jonathan Jones makes a pretty compelling argument that space photography is the best photography. [The Guardian]

WNYC has launched a new week long series discussing affordability in New York for artists, called “Making it in New York”. The first feature gives a very broad overview of the problem. Naturally, PS109, an artist only affordable workspace launched by artspace is featured, along with plenty of discussion about gentrification. [WNYC]

As Art Basel approaches, the art market stories come fast and furious. Here’s a comparison between venture capitalist backed unicorns (tech start-ups valued at over 1 billion) and the art market. The take home? Evaluate the product not its monetary value. [The New Yorker]

A couple of interesting snippets from the first of a four part series on the art market produced by Artsy and UBS. First, an unidentified collector explaining that for artists, being acquired by a private collection is actually better than a museum because they give artists more show freedom than a museum would. The second being Josh Baer postulating that there are not art movements—except the art market. LOLOLOL. Does the art market really need an ad for itself? Because that’s essentially what this series is. [Artsy]

Wow. An anarchist collective that runs a live/work performance space in Detroit just beat a developer in a competition for lots adjoining their property. This is unusual good news in the gentrification wars. [Detroit Free Press]

As we prepare for Basel Miami, let us reflect on Aurel Schmidt’s approach: “It’s a great way for people in the art world to actually have fun together.” [T Magazine, 2009]

Manish Vora, co-founder of Grey Area, tells it like it is, “So much of the Basel fatigue is that a lot of the events are not that fun.” Pre-party Basel coverage has already started at NYT. This year’s concern? Celeb parties are a bigger draw than art parties. [The New York Times]

BUTT Magazine has taken down our favorite reportage from the fairs, but Choire Sicha quoted a juicy paragraph of it back in 2009. Even that much is worth the read. [The Awl]

Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn gets a lauding profile from the New York Times. Marilyn Minter has the best quotes in the piece, “I was really attracted to her in the first place because she had black artists and women, and never made a big deal out of it,” she said. We also learn a little about a Minter painting called “The Singer”, which sadly won’t be at Basel this year. [The New York Times]

New York Magazine will go from publishing their magazine weekly to every other week. They plan to use the money they save to beef up the long form features in the magazine and invest in online content. [The New York Times]

Jay and Stuart Podolsky are landlords making a fortune by renting shelter spaces to the city. Their nicknames back when one such building was used as a hostel? The “terror lords”. Andrew Rice really did a great job with this story. [New York Magazine]

A revised bill for the Equity for Visual Artists Act, which would introduce artists’ resale rights to the art market will be floated in the Capital come January. With all the political gridlock there though, we don’t anticipate the bill passing anytime soon. [The Art Newspaper]

Exhibitors from this year’s Scope Basel fair complain about poor organization and harsh words from fair founder, Alexis Hubsman. Adding this to the list of other unhappy exhibitors in the past, we wonder if Scope should still be around.